Child's Play: Building Blocks
by TheFifthSister
Summary: HG and Emma have fun taking over the house.


_For Xenite. _

Myka slid a cup of tea in front of HG as she read at the table and poured herself some coffee as she bustled around the kitchen getting breakfast ready.

"Where's Emma?" Myka asked her wife.

"She went to get something from her room," HG leant back to look at her, waiting for her to come back to the table for a kiss. Myka bought over a plate of bagels, putting them on the table in front of HG as she gave her the kiss and put a bowl in front of Emma's seat.

"Come on Emma," she called out as she slid into her seat opposite. "You're breakfast is on the table."

Myka got herself a bagel, spreading cream cheese onto it and sipped her coffee as HG continued to read. Emma came running into the kitchen with a large sheet of paper in front of her, the only thing visible were her feet and hands. Tripping slightly, HG jumped up from her seat and grabbed it before Emma could topple over completely or walk into anything.

"What are you doing with this?" HG asked her, a little exasperated at the early morning antics as she looked at the paper she typically used for blueprints.

Emma climbed into her seat, picking up the spoon in her cereal. "Can we build it?" she asked, shovelling Fruitloops into her mouth.

HG studied the paper and, upon Myka's curious look, turned it around to show her wife. Myka laughed when she saw the blueprints for the chocolate factory she'd found HG and Emma slaving over a few weeks ago.

HG laid it down on the countertop and resumed her place at the table, taking a bagel for herself. "Emma, that was a bit of fun. I don't think we can actually build one."

Emma looked at her, a pout fixed firmly on her face. "You said," she whined, her lip sticking out and her curls falling around her face to frame the sad eyes she was giving her mother. HG looked at Myka for backup, being the sterner of the two of them when HG struggled not to breakdown, but she only received Myka's 'you're on your own' look as her wife continued to eat her breakfast and watch HG squirm.

HG sighed. "Why do you have to look like your Mama when you do that?" Helena mumbled. "Alright sweetheart, I will think of something... _if _you finish your breakfast."

Emma considered it for a second then held her hand out to her mother, little finger sticking out. HG looked at the hand and then at Myka who was attempting to hide a smirk behind the bagel she'd held up to her mouth. "Promise?" Emma asked.

HG took Emma's finger in her own, squeezing it as she smirked at Emma who just looked up at her, her nose crinkling in an image of Myka when she knew she'd gotten her way.

Finishing her breakfast, Myka put her plate and mug in the sink. "Right, I'm going to the Warehouse. I'll come home to have lunch with you though, if you're staying here. Give me a kiss," Myka bent down next to Emma and her daughter gave her a sloppy kiss. "Keep Mummy out of trouble for me, okay?"

"'Kay," Emma nodded as she stuffed more Fruitloops into her mouth.

"Have fun inventing," Myka said to HG after giving her a goodbye kiss and left the kitchen. "Don't destroy the house!" She called back as she picked up her car keys.

HG shook her head as she heard the door close, laughing at the accusation. She sat watching Emma eat, finishing off her own breakfast and trying to decide the best options she had that would allow her to keep her promise to her daughter but not require her and Myka to purchase land. She ran through the things she had in her workshop in the basement. She had it.

"Finished Mummy," Emma interrupted her thoughts. "May I be 'scused?"

HG smiled at that fact she was remembering what they'd been starting to teach her. "Yes, you may."

Emma jumped down from her seat, immediately getting to HG's side and winding her arms around her, turning her big brown pleading eyes on her mother. "Can we play now?"

"If you help me clear the table then we may," HG told her.

HG picked up the plates, her cup as Emma lifted her bowl and carefully carried it over with her mother who took it from her to put them all in the sink and then they put away the place mats and soft cheese back in the fridge and HG brewed herself some more tea.

"Okay, you wait for me in the front room and I'll be right back," HG instructed Emma who ran out of the room. HG watched her plop down on the sofa, kicking her legs excitedly as she walked to the staircase, opening the door under it, flicking on the light and climbing down to her lab. She kept all her tools and projects down her. Her workbench littered with gadgets in various stages of completion, the more dangerous equipment mounted up high and locked in the various cabinets around the room so they were out of Emma's reach when she would help her mother build some of the model kits that were on display around the room. A painting easel was set up in one corner with a bunch of finger paints, in another corner were the scraps of materials that HG kept at hand. It was neat and tidy, being a space that sometimes her little girl would spend time in. There was a sofa against the back wall for the times Myka would join her while she worked and sit to watch whatever it was she was doing at that time. She walked to a cabinet and opened it. She grabbed a large box, dragging it to the bottom of the stairs.

"I should have thought of this before Myka left." The box was an awkward length. She braced herself, lifting the box and grunting a little under the weight but made it up the stairs and into the living room. "Remind me to ask Mama about installing a lift, okay?" She said to Emma who was bouncing excitedly. "Ready?"

"Yes," Emma cheered, jumping off the sofa and hopping to her mother's side.

HG lifted the lid from the box, putting it to one side and, with Emma's help, tipped it over. A multitude of colourful Lego bricks spilled out on to the floor. HG laid their 'blueprints' out on the coffee table.

"Start here Mummy?" Emma asked, pointing to the east wall of her drawing.

"After you, darling."

Emma plopped herself down and started to assemble blocks together. HG sat down beside her, handing her bricks as needed and showing her how to structure their project as it progressed. HG began to add corners to the wall that was now spanning more than half the length of the room, starting on the next wall as Emma stacked bricks to start making the wall taller.

"Like that Mummy?" Emma asked, cocking her slightly to one side as she regarded her work.

HG smiled at her. "You are doing a marvellous job. Keep going."

Emma hummed away happily, running back and forth between her wall and the one HG had started, giving her mother more bricks and pushing her out of the way to put one down for her. "You gotta put that there, Mummy."

HG looked at her with amusement. "You're just as bossy as your Mama sometimes." She tickled Emma, her little girl squealing and rolling, trying to escape. "And you're ticklish like her too."

"Mummy," she whined until HG relented and let her go. She crawled into HG's lap and the two continued to build. HG had to move the coffee table and some of the furniture back to make space.

Then they came to the final wall. "Okay Emma, look at the design. What's different about this wall?" HG watched Emma's eyes flicker over their work, biting her lip as she tried to figure out the answer. "What does this need that the others did not?"

Emma's finger hit the paper. "A door!"

HG squeezed her. "Good girl. So we need to leave a space to enter and exit."

Myka came home for lunch after a morning of research on some of the artifacts that were still waiting to be shelved and was looking forward to a nice quiet hour with her girls before going back to the madhouse.

"Oh my God." She stopped when she walked into the front room, confronted with a giant Lego structure that filled most of the room. "Woah."

"Hi Mama!" Emma's cheery voice called out from inside.

"You have been busy," Myka said, walking around a little to see just how big the other side was. "Can I come in?" She heard whispering, rolling her eyes at their games.

"Password," Emma teased, barely suppressing a giggle.

"Password?"

More whispering. "Best writer ever?" Emma asked.

"Oh, that one's easy," Myka laughed. "Jules Verne."

And HG popped up to confront her as expected, an eyebrow raised and hands on her hips. "That was hardly called for."

Myka laughed, leaning across to kiss her.

"Is it lunchtime already?" HG asked, leaving their fortress. "Time for a break Emma."

"Do you like it Mama?" Emma asked as she wrapped her arms around Myka.

"It's very big," Myka told her. "I didn't know what had so much Lego. When did that happen?"

HG shrugged. "We've just accumulated it over the years. It only took a couple of trips up from the basement with it all."

Myka laughed, walking into the kitchen with HG in tow. "I knew introducing you to Lego would become a thing," She teased, opening the fridge as HG got bread and three plates out.

"Lego is an advancement that I truly admire. I really wish I'd thought of it," HG . "To be able to build from one's imagination without limit, not to mention safely. It's a remarkable thing."

"I don't know. Standing on one of those pieces hurts," Myka winced as HG slid the plates in front of her and she spread jelly on top.

"Christina had these little wooden blocks that she'd stack up and build houses and castles and palaces with and she would get so very frustrated when she'd put another one on and the thing would overbalance and fall apart. I used to sit and watch her and she'd have a little tantrum but then she'd do it all over again," She smiled faintly, thinking of her eldest daughter. "She'd have loved Lego."

Myka stopped finishing off their sandwiches to watch her wife, moving beside her to wrap her arms around her waist and rest her chin on her shoulder as she let HG process what she was feeling. She missed Christina and as Emma got older and did more things to remind HG of her eldest daughter she could deal with the memories better but sometimes it helped to have Myka there to let her know it was okay to be sad sometimes.

"We're going to add some rooms this afternoon," HG added.

"I love you sharing your creative mind with Emma," Myka told her. "You should tell her about Christina. She'd be happy to be like her big sister." Myka kissed her and went back to finishing their sandwiches. HG grabbed some fruit and they picked up their plates, along with Emma's and walked back into the family room.

"Do you want to eat inside?" Myka asked Emma, already knowing what the answer would be.

It was a tight fit with all three of them there. Emma sat in Myka's lap and chatted away as HG sat facing them.

"...and it needs Ooma's bedrooms and the room where they keep all the cookies." Emma explained in between bites of her sandwich.

"And we'll put a tasting room here and the room with the TV over there," HG played along, laughing with Myka over Emma's obsession with the book.

"So you just need some Oompa Lompas then Ems?" Myka asked. "When I get home later why don't you and me make some treats?"

Emma looked up at her with her big brown eyes alight with joy. "Can we make cakes?"

"Sure we can."

"Chocolate ones?"

Myka laughed. "It _is_ a chocolate factory, of course."

"Yay, thank you."

Myka finished lunch with them, returning to the Warehouse and leaving them to their work. When they had finished HG got them a snack and they huddled down in their new fort, reading a little of _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory _until Myka came home, groceries in hand and spent some time baking cakes with Emma that they later ate in the 'factory' after dinner.


End file.
